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Two Apple security sessions cancelled at Black Hat

Apple-related security sessions have been canceled from this week's Black Hat …

Two Apple-related security sessions have been canceled at this week's Black Hat conference due to confidentiality and marketing issues, according to a Washington Post article. The first talk, which was supposed to see Charles Edge discuss FileVault and its flawed encryption scheme, was axed after he signed an agreement to keep quiet with the Cupertino company. It seems as though this is strictly a case of not biting the hand that feeds you, as Edge states that Apple is his largest client. You can't blame him for pulling out, but as the Post article points out, this will probably just further pique the interest of the hacker community, resulting in the issue being discovered and outed regardless of any agreement.

The second session, which Computerworld has more information on, was supposed to be given by an Apple engineering team, but was canceled after he company's marketing department got wind of what the team was about to do: "Marketing got wind of it, and nobody at Apple is ever allowed to speak publicly about anything without marketing approval."

While it seems a bit naive that the team members thought they could do this without cutting through all the red tape associated with working for a major company, it's also kind of cute. Apparently, the group was supposed to talk about "security engineering" and how seriously they take security. These are relatively benign topics, but if you have ever had to deal with PR or marketing, the outcome really isn't that surprising.

Talking openly about security practices and flaws intrinsically associated with crafting an entire operating system can be a slippery slope. How much to divulge and how much to keep under wraps can cause quite the stir in the industry, and for now, it seems that Apple is content taking the position of "what you don't know can't hurt you."